I am always on the look out for quality webmaster resources to share with my readers. One of the biggest problems for new and even experienced webmasters is finding quality hosting for their website or blog. If you have followed my blog, you will know that I prefer quality hosting even if it is not the cheapest.
I recently discovered Imhosted.com which offers great Website Hosting. I decided to check into the different packages and see what they were all about. The first thing I discovered on their website was that they lay it all out in simple and easy terms. What you see is what you pay with no hidden cost.
They offer one shared hosting plan at $6.95 a month. This is not the cheapest plan I have seen but they offer unlimited websites on that plan and it comes with 2,500GB space and 20,000 GB bandwidth. This is a huge package and will be more than enough for any webmaster. They also offer a full 24/7 support system for the hosting package.
On top of the shared hosting package, they offer three different reseller package to meet the needs of hosting resellers. On all their hosting packages, they offer a money back guarantee and they promise a 99.5% up time. Unlike many other hosts who promise that, if they fail to deliver at least that, they will credit a portion of your fee for that month. For the last six months, they have had a 99.998% up time for their servers.
I liked everything I have read and have spoken to a friend who uses them. I would welcome comments on this blog from others who have used their services. I also have provided a link for you to check them out for yourself.
Remember, when deciding on a web hosting company, do your research and look for a guarantee. Be willing to pay a little more to go with a company that offers good support and great packages. Cheap is not always better when your site is always down. I recommend checking out Imhosted to see of they have what you are looking for. If you sign up, please come back and share your experience with my other readers.
Finding good quality hosting is always a challenge. There are many hosting sites that off free or super cheap rates and when you start using them, you end up with slow loading, massive downtime, and no support when you need it. This can be super frustrating. That is why it is important to look for a company you can trust.
The good news is that there are affordable web hosting companies that will provide excellent service and provide great uptime. The key to finding this is to read all terms of service and read what they promise to you.
There is a limit to everything when it comes to hosting. Packages that promise unlimited everything for $1 a month is the type of stuff you should avoid. Cheaper is not better and you should look for reliability. The company should offer at least 99% uptime and 24/7 support. Problems do not always happen between 9 to 5 weekdays so their support team should be there when you need them.
Be sure that the plan you pick covers what your needs are. How many sites will you have? How much space will you need? How much traffic will you have each month? These are all questions you need to answer and than ask upfront if the plan you choose will cover that. Remember, if you use a lot of big images or loads of video, this will require more bandwidth than just a text site.
Ask everything up front and make sure you know what you are paying for. One thing to consider is who is in charge of keeping back ups of your site. If the host provides back ups, this is a huge plus if anything every happens. You also want to know if the price is discounted if you pay by the year instead of the month. This could save quite a bit of money for you.
Good hosting is out there and with the right research and the right questions, you can find the best for great prices.
One of the first steps in creating a website or blog is registering a domain name. When doing so, you need to make sure you are dealing with a Domain Names registrar that is reliable and easy to deal with. There are certain factors you want to look at.
First, you want to make sure that you are able to transfer your domain to another registrar if you are not happy with them. All registrars are required to allow you to transfer a domain but some make it very difficult. The other thing you want to check is how easy it is to transfer to a new owner if you wish to sell the domain name. I used a company by the name of Ipower and they required you to have forms signed by both the buyer and seller and have the form notarized before you could switch owners. This made it impossible for me to sell a name I no longer needed so I lost the name. There are many that allow you to just transfer to a new owner if the owner has an account with them. These are normally free accounts. Make sure your registrar does this before signing up with them. I know for sure GoDaddy and Namecheap both offer this service.
Next, you want to do your research to see what others are saying in regards to problems and support. A domain registrar should be able to provide great customer service and quick help. I have dealt with several companies and I can honestly say, the one I am with now has been the best so far. I have been with NameCheap for over two years and I have not had any problems and the service is excellent. The manage domains interface is easy to use and when I did sell a domain name, it took seconds to transfer it to a new owner.
The final thing to look at is price. This to me means very little if the rest of the factors do not add up. Be wary of great first year offers. Make sure you know what the cost will be for renewal. Several companies offer free WhoIs Privacy for the first year free then they charge from $2.88 to $9.95 a year after that for the WhoIs protection. Make sure you know this upfront. I was with GoDaddy and their’s went from free to $8.88 and it was a pain to try and figure out how to get it off my account without paying for it with the renewal. With NameCheap, it was free the first year and $2.88 for the renewal. However, you could just choice it or not choice it and it was not automatically applied to your bill.
One last piece of advice. Never ever register your domain the same place you have your hosting account. If you do this and your site is ever shut down for any reason, you lose both the access to your site and to your domain name. At least if you have the domain at a separate place, you can use file back ups and a new host to get your site up and running.
This article will get you started, make sure you do your research before buying any service.
Have any advice or question to add to this advice? Please leave a comment and I will do my best to answer or add your advice for others to read.
The basis of any good website is good hosting. I have had many websites over the years I have been on the Internet and I have been happy with very few. I decided after my recent problems to share some advice when it comes to purchasing hosting.
First of all, the term “you get what you pay for” applies when finding good hosting. I once purchased what seemed to be a great deal off of eBay. The company was Vamp Host and it was only $9.99 for a year with unlimited everything. I was excited, they had good feedback, seemed pretty solid and I could host all my sites in one place. I jumped on the deal.
Well as I soon learned, cheap is not always better. I updated my site everyday with new pages only to go on and check the next day and all my work was gone. I contacted the host and was told they had to switch servers and anything I change that day was lost. I was annoyed but I understood and redid all my work. Then it happened a total of 14 more times in the three months I was with them. I switched hosting really fast.
As you know from my last post, I recently received a free hosting account in exchange for doing a review. I had the account for a couple of weeks and I started having the same problems as with Vamp Host. I lost posts, they had server problems and I just did not want to waste my time and damage my website with such garbage. I am not saying that all
are bad. Just be careful who you deal with and make sure they have a good reputation. There are some really good ones that are truly free and offer a great service.
I am with A1 Web Hosting Solutions and have been very happy with them. I started with them a couple of months ago with my other blogs. They have several plans with reasonable prices. I have not had any downtimes and everything loads quickly.
My advice when looking for hosting is to look for the best plan that you can afford. Do your research by searching for information on your future host.If a deal sounds too good to be true, it is. There is no such thing as unlimited anything, all servers have a limit. The problem is that many hosting companies oversell their servers and hope you never use what you paid for. If you use too much bandwidth or space, they end up suspending your account. This brings up a big point when buying hosting.
DO NOT purchase hosting from the same place you have your domain registered. I am sure many of these companies have great hosting services. However, it creates possible problems for you. First, if you overuse the server and they suspend your account, you also lose access to both the site and the domain. This could also happen if you are reported for something bad such as copyright infringement. It would suck to get your site suspended and not have access to the site. Of course it would be worse to not even have access to your domain. You can get new hosting and get your site back up if your site is suspended but if they also control the domain, you could end up losing everything.
As with buying anything in life, it is important to think before you buy hosting. Do not rely on testimonies on the website of the host, ask around and Google the company for real feedback from customers. Look for good uptime, good support, what they are compatible with as far as PHP and such, and what they offer for features. I recommend looking for a host that offers Fantasico which allows you to add many of the popular programs like WordPress with ease. This is important for people like me who hate to do any kind of coding.
Other important features you need to look at are how many add on domains you are allowed. If you plan to have more than one domain, you want to know how many are allowed on your plan. You need at least one SQL Database for every software you plan to load like WordPress or a Directory software. If you have five add on domains and are only allowed two SQL databases, you will not be able to do all five domains with certain programs. You also want to know how many sub domains you are allowed to have. There are many other features that you will need to check depending on what your needs are. Just make sure that you have the option to upgrade if your site becomes so popular that you need more space or more bandwidth.
Just be smart and do not settle on cheap or free when often times for a little more you can get what you really want.
I would like to apologize to any of my readers who have had problems accessing the blog. I became aware that there was a problem only yesterday when I was submitting to a directory. Apparently my hosting company’s server has been having problems and they failed to let us know.
I have had this problem before and I did not want to deal with it again. I have switched everything over to a new hosting. I have use the new host for my other blogs and I have had no problems so I signed up for a new account for this blog.
The old host Lime-designs.net was given to me for free because they wanted me to review it. I have been with them for a couple of weeks and I have had other problems with busy server and I also lost a post. I guess free is not always better.
Hopefully everything transferred correctly and we should not experience anymore problems. Thanks for sticking with me.
